State Government mismanagement of introduction of swimming pool barrier program causes real problems for Councils and could see ratepayers face additional costs to fix Chair of Liverpool Plains Shire Council (LPSC) Environmental Services Committee and Deputy Mayor, Councillor Col Stewart, has expressed concern at problems people are facing trying to register their swimming pools to meet requirements of the State Government’s Swimming Pools Amendment Act 2012 and the way in which the program has been rolled out. “Council’s Environmental Services staff is concerned at the way the program has been rolled out in a rural/regional context and difficulties in accessing information about the reforms. The State-wide, on-line Swimming Pool Register continues to be problematic with residents critical of general accessibility to the system and reports of it crashing and losing data. It is a sad state of affairs when people give up trying due to sheer frustration,” Councillor Stewart said. “Another problem is the system being so heavily E-based and numerous people who have pools not having ready access to the internet. Council’s Customer Service staff have been assisting those residents, wherever practicable, by faxing through a hard copy registration form on their behalf. There are also problems for Council’s themselves registering their swimming centres with the system. “Another problem is the actual consultation process with the community to establish the Swimming Pool Barrier Inspection Program. Despite using a variety of communication mechanisms, both electronic and hard copy, Council has only received a handful of responses and these were primarily from non pool owners!” he said. “Some additional research by Council’s planning staff reveals the existence of a high level of fear of perceived future ramifications through participating in the process. This includes fears of on-going upgrade costs, the possibility of fines for non-compliance and existing non-compliance issues like the pool never having been originally approved. This has not been helped by the negative and punitive nature of the State Government’s awareness raising campaign and a recent case where the drowning death of a toddler led to manslaughter charges, since dropped, against the pool owner,” he continued. “While LPSC staff are preparing a package of available information for distribution to identified pool/spa owners the issues I’ve mentioned, until properly addressed by the State Government, will present significant challenges to both the development and implementation of an effective swimming pool barrier inspection program and will see ratepayers face additional costs as the programs supervisory role has been cost shifted to Local Government,” Councillor Stewart concluded.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 02:24:32 +0000
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